Session 4

Who?
I had never really given much though into the impact of your living region, so I was surprised to see this as our next area of concentration. If I had to have guessed, I would have said that the western coast or the north west were the areas of highest poverty. Because of my previous thoughts, I was especially surprised to see that the area I live in, the southern region was the most poverty stricken. I initially thought that these rates would be largely based on the cost of living. My interest was also peaked to see the percentages of poverty in the south actually drop (even if only by .02%) from 2005 to 2006. The midwest, west, and northeast are all relatively equal and measure in about 11% each.
It did not catch me off guard a bit to see the percentages of poverty being the highest in cities (16.1%) and the lowest in the suburbs (15.2%) while the rural areas were in the middle (11.8%)

Although I currently live in a suburb of Atlanta, my dad's family is from a very rural area of West Virginia. Because I visit them a few times every year, I am quite familiar with the economic routine that is described for us. My dad actually moved to Georgia because of the lack of work that was available to him in West Virginia and to this day, many of my family members that live there are either unemployed or are working out of state doing labor intensive duties due to a lack of higher education.

Why?
Some factors include:
Never finishing highschool. I had been taught both by my family and my educators that getting a good education is key and I couldn't agree more.
A large percentage of those unemployed.
A family size of 7 people or more. I didn't think or this reason in my originally post, but this definitely makes sense. More children means more mouths to feed.
A female run house hold. Without assistance, it's very difficult to get ahead.